Sunday, May 29, 2011

Peaceful fall day. We're just revelling in all these crunchy fallen leaves, bright colors, and cool nights. At least Paul and I are. (We don't get an autumn like this in our part of Cape Town.) Timmy commented about not liking the leaves.

"Why not?" I demanded.
"You can't sneak up on people in leaves."
Oh. Well, that makes sense, I guess.

We spent one night in stables, and this paper mache rooster ruled the roost. I analyzed him, and would like to make one like him, but it's not going to happen. There's a missing link between my art ideas and my artability.



Josh turned 10 here! Isn't he long and lean? Like a bright red hot dog! My parents sent him that outfit, and he didn't want to take it off for days. The shirt says, "Do you want my autograph now, or after you lose?" and that just tickles his 10 year old funny bone.



Our family is memorizing 1 Timothy 2 right now and I'm liking it, partly because I memorized it before so it is sticking easier then most verses. I like this part "prayers be made....that we may lead a "quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."



We are leading a quiet and peaceable life here in Oudtshoorn! Get this: I haven't gone any where in the car for one whole week! How's that for quiet and peaceable? Paul takes the car every day to the schools. Even if a school is close, his equipment is heavy enough that he wants to drive as close to the spot as he can.



I walk to the grocery store and to whatever necessary stuff we need to buy, and also to explore a little. Oudtshoorn has a lot of touristy things. We have been to the caves, and to an ostrich ranch on other visits, so we haven't done anything big in our free time this time. Saturday we did walk to a chocolate shop called Chocoletier Rococo, and then to a place with goats' milk cheese and fudge, and that little outing was a big hit with the Youngsters. We checked out the pet store, and have been to the Post Office a couple of time`s.


Each evening we have a fire so we all stay in the same room to stay warm, and we read aloud, or do school work. One memorable evening we had two kids struggling over difficult math ideas, so our cozy scene wasn't so fun as when we can read.


For several nights we read the biography of James Chalmers, missionary to cannibals. He was inspiring, even if he did get eaten in the end. He was ready!


Another way we keep warm is to sit in our car (like right now) when the sun is out as the car gets nice and warm.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Election Day

After a tremendous struggle, we have a victory over technology! My pictures wouldn't upload, for whatever virtual reason, but after days of delays and retries, there we are! We were only at Kwasizabantu for 2 nights this time, and it was nice. Ever since, I've found myself trying to explain to people what is so special at Kwasizabantu, besides the price of the stuff in their bakery. (Really, I could do a whole blog entry on those goodies!)

I would sum it up in 2 words: changed lives. Kwasizabantu in a mission station out in the boonies between Greytown and Stanger. I hear you can see it on Google Earth. People come there to visit or to stay and work. They are a successful community with a great mix of people from many nations. It's a God thing, for sure.

The 10,000 seat auditorium burned down in 2008, and has been rebuilt, better then ever. It looks small in my picture, but we are looking at it from across the airstrip. It's ready for great gatherings. May the Lord continue to bless this place of Zulu revival.


As we travelled, we landed one night in a place called Gunubie, and there was this tree that is 350 years old. Evangel immediately wanted to do a remake of Swiss Family Robinson with a house in this tree. :-)




Cows crossing the road is no big deal. A much better photo would have been the faces of the herders. They were delighted that I was taking pictures of their cows, smiling, instead of frowning about the delay. Cows are the pride and joy of Zulus.





We stayed over one night at the Willows in Port Elizabeth, and I was trying to catch the beauty there in the above and below pictures.






Today is South Africa's election day, and I'm so, so thankful. Frankly, I don't keep up with politics here very much, but my beloved Paul needed a rest, and election day is a holiday, so it's a good thing. He slept about 12 hours, got up, ate breakfast, led us in family devos, and went back to bed for another snooze.


The kids did a half day of school work and I revelled in the chance to do laundry, pull splinters, and blog a bit. It was a relaxed day.

The only problem is I'm reading the book Radical by David Platt, and I was in the mood for action! I'm extra inspired to glorify our great God, and we didn't see many people today, but I can at least tell a few things on this blog, and hopefully the pictures of some of the alluring places we have stayed will upload. (As you saw, they finally did, though I started this on Wednesday, and only got it to happen on Saturday.)

Thursday, May 12, 2011

5 Testimonies

We left Jivannadi Mission yesterday. Sniff. I think this is the first place that has tempted me to leave Cape Town as a base of operations. Let me tell you what won my heart: the people! They are a loveable bunch, I suppose because they are so loving. They welcomed us, gave us a nice place to stay (our house on stilts). I collected a few testimonies there.

One Indian lady who interviewed me for the radio station is such a honey. After the interview, we just sat on the lawn and talked and enjoyed each other. Yogie was from a Hindu family who turned to Christ when her dad died. She said the Christians reached out to her and her mom when the Hindus were leaving them alone. Her mother and brother began going to church, and she turned on the radio to hear a preacher from India. Her mom and brother were a little confused by different things they had heard at church, so as the three of them talked, she told what she had learned from her radio preacher. They all started listening to him, and were saved and baptized later.

Their family lived on a huge farm, but that ended abruptly shortly after her father died. Five men sneaked up on the roof of their home. They waited until my interviewer left for work, and then entered the house through the roof. Her Dad had made a bathroom in their bedroom and covered the entrance with a mirror so that no one who didn't know, would know it was there. Her mom hid, praying hard, hid in that bathroom. She prayed they wouldn't find her, and she prayed her cell phone wouldn't ring. (It was new and she didn't know how to shut it off.) She could hear them in her bedroom, saying in Zulu, "Where is she?" as they opened every cupboard and searched.

The Lord kept her safe, but they moved out of that home immediately. Yogie is a radio announcer for Good News Christian Radio now, and a good one because she acts very interested in her subject and gets them talking, and she's very professional.

Michelle works at the radio station, does announcing and organizing, and interviewing. She also took good care of us and made sure we had all the stuff we needed. She shared how the Lord had brought her out of drugs when she was about at the end of her rope. The Lord delivered her from smoking and the drugs, and we got into a good sharing time about others, like my uncle, who were delivered immediately from smoking.

She also delivered me to a speaking engagement at Umhalanga Pre-primary School. That was a rare event for me. I spoke to the moms of the preschoolers, and really enjoyed that opportunity. My new friend was an encouragement in my case of nerves. That sounds like a skimpy testimony, but her life was a rich one. Watching a woman of action gets my blood pumping to do more for our Lord.

On Friday evening two ladies had us over for a Malaysian meal. It was in the home of Althea, an Indian woman who has been at Jivannadi for 30 years. She gave us a very animated account of her testimony. She came to Christ after hearing the gospel on Trans World Radio. She listened for three days, and prayed, knowing her Hindu family would not approve. She kept it a secret for a time, but when the truth came out, she was kicked out of her home, straight into the rain!
Imagine how that would feel, as most everyone she knew was a Hindu, so where would a new Christian go? She knew one Christian "auntie" and went to her, to stay there until things had cooled down and she was eventually welcomed into her own home again.

I think it was before this that she had been pressured into marrying a man of her parents' choosing. He was a wicked man, and they eventually separated. As they were separated, she continued to study her Bible and learned that God hates divorce! So she decided she would try to reconcile with her husband. He seemed agreeable, but he had one condition, she must become a Hindu again. She could not deny the Lord. I'm not sure how long it was after this that her husband took his own miserable life.

She later came to Jivannadi Mission and now has a rich ministry. She has a daily, hour long program for ladies, is a counselor, and helps in other ways.

The Malaysian lady is also a missionary. Aunty Betty was raised by a Buddhist mom and a nominally Christian dad. She only got saved when she was a little older. She went to school in Australia and then was a missionary to Sri Lanka. She told a heart wrenching story. She told of how she was asked to teach a Bible study in Sri Lanka. The ladies didn't bring Bibles or anything, so she wondered how many of them were really Christians. So she began by asking, "Do any of you know Princess Diana?" Many hands lifted.

Next she asked, "Would one of you come forward and tell me how you met her. I'd love to hear what she's like." They admitted they didn't really know the Princess, they just knew about her.
"Do any of you know Jesus?" was her next question. She didn't even have to explain. Some of the ladies began to cry as they realized they knew about Jesus but didn't know him. Many were saved that day.

The vicar of the church sought out the Malaysian. Do you think he wanted to congratulate her? No, he told her he didn't want that "born again" stuff in his church. She was not welcome back. "Woe to you... [who] shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in" ( Matt. 23:13).

My last lady is Dr. Ida Scudder. I'm reading a book called Dr. Ida, by Dorothy Clarke Wilson. I'm loving it! She was a missionary doctor to India. In fact, her grandparents and many of her relatives were missionaries. At the time she was alive, they had served a total of over 1000 years as missionaries on different fields.

I loved how her parents got engaged. In church in Massachusetts, her future dad, John, slipped her future mom, Sophia, a note, that had 2 John 5, "Now I beseech thee lady...that we love one another."

Without hesitation, Sophia sent back a note with Ruth 1:16-17, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go...."

Isn't that sweet? I love it. Makes me want to go back and re-do our engagement. Forget the cemetery, the car in front of my parents' house, the kiss...um, maybe not. I'll keep my own story, but I do love hers too.

Throughout her book, Wilson gives mini testimonies that just whet the appetite for more of the story, and I wish there were dozens of books about these heroes of the faith in India. I have read a few, such as Ten Fingers for God about Paul Brand, and Granny Brand about Paul's mother. I have one about Paul's wife Margaret too.

Dr. Ida was a champion of women's medicine in India. She had an unusual call to India. She had spent her teen years in the USA and chose that as her place to live. But she had to go visit in India again as her mom was very sick. While she was visiting, three men came in separately, but all in the same night, trying to find a woman doctor to treat their wives. None would have a male see her. All three women died, and Ida Scudder's eyes were finally opened to the need there. She got qualified as a doctor, built hospitals, and trained others to serve their own country. She sounds tireless! She took in orphans, did roadside doctoring, and built a vacation home where she could invite others. That's as far as I've read, but I'm enjoying it.

I hope I continue to hear and collect testimonies. The way God changes us is one sign of His power! I just realized that all 5 of these above are single women. They have a freedom to do all kinds of things that us married women cannot, and I'm impressed with them. I love it when single women use their single years to do big things for the Lord, instead of waiting for "Mr. Right" before they get busy.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Jivannadi

My 3 kiddos have been busy making sure Mother's Day is special.
I am blessed to have these kiddos! Evangel and Timothy are both taller then me, and I think Josh will pass me next year. That is just a comment, not why I'm blessed. We have really enjoyed staying at this mission. This mission is a little community of believers actively seeking to obey the Lord in everything and love their neighbors as themselves. They have welcomed us generously and we've enjoyed great hospitality.



Many of the people live in cute little "Wendy Houses" like this one.





The gardens are productive. Timothy grabbed this picture of "paw paw" or papaya. They're near the trampoline where we liked to go. They're almost ripe, but the monkeys might get them first.





There's our whole gang trying to get a decent picture to send my Mom for Mother's Day.









Look at all those bananas!











Paul is posing with Aunty Betty from Malaysia. She wanted a picture with "Goliath and the teeny, tiny Asian."


One of my favorite things about Jivannadi is their radio station, and the fact that they have wanted me on it! It's nice to be asked to speak and to be useful, and it's also a good way to get to know the workers here in the interviews. So tune in to 93.6 GNCR Good News Christian Radio to hear Paul, Evangel, and me as all got to help on programs.













Tuesday, May 3, 2011

101

Look where we're staying! It's a log cabin with 3 bedrooms, shiney wood floors, and nice wide porch. We're blessed! I have another blog called www.100houses.blogspot.com that may become a book about some of the ways God has fulfilled his promise to give a hundredfold to those who have left houses and lands for the sake of the Lord.


The grounds at Jivannadi Mission are rich with gorgeous flowers. I love the velvety centers of this hibiscus.



The view from the porch can be summed up in one word: green!





Yesterday we had a special invitation to an elegant Indian home overlooking the Indian Ocean.









What a meal! Breyani, macaroni and cheese, roti's, kabobs, stir-fry, and more were made with low doses of curry for us wimpy Americans. Our host Eugene Nadsen had suffered a heart attack just a few days earlier, so he was eating very carefully. Pastor Greg Denashen is there above. He's the director of Jivannadi Mission. We watched TV reports on Osama bin Ladan's demise before we had dessert.

Such a lovely thing to get together with other believers, to laugh, to relax, to share, to learn, and to get a glimpse of how blessed we are to be part of the Lord's family.